"Your allied species are amenable to transport a military expedition back to aid you? What size and other limitations on the force? Also amenable to return them back here, along with those of your people who wish to come? Bright Lantern of Ophis is a Day ritual of magnitude six which reveals magical properties of an item in greater detail than Detect Magic. It does not detail curses, for that you need the Winter ritual Wisdom of the Balanced Blade."

"They're big but not optimized for transport, the one who brought me here thinks he could take me and three humans at once. He may be able to secure help after our first trip back to Lidian but there are no guarantees. The trip here took" - nearly half a moon cycle but don't give them anything that might help them find you, not yet - "a decent amount of time, but I was in an induced coma for most of it, which saved on the cost of bringing and finding food and fresh water. Tuvien would happily return anyone who wants to return here, and so would anyone he could find to help him."

Magnitude. Magical properties of an item. Detect Magic, that's what they used on her before. Winter <-> curses. Winter <-> curses. Items have magical properties. Magnitude six. Magnitudes give you rituals which let you detect an item's magical properties. Winter <-> curses.

"So you are recruiting for an elite squad of three heroes over the season to assess the situation, aid in diplomacy for additional capacity, and possibly make initial rescue attempts for specific time sensitive issues - possibly followed by small group quests to resolve the situation, in return for the opportunity to recruit ferryshaft? Or over multiple seasons? What is your estimate on possible numbers of ferryshaft available if this resolves positively? What is the timescale on needing an initial response?

Boggarts are a kind of minor realm creature. Examples include Night aligned lizards which eat mana, Day parrots which eat information - most readily books, Spring ambulatory poison vines, Summer fanatical soldier goblins, Winter lean wolves which eat anything but preferentially living flesh, Autumn mechanical spiders which report specific information back to their originators."

Tollee suddenly feels very small and stupid. Hide it. She can't just say 'we didn't think that far ahead because we were kids, one of which had nothing to live for, desperately concocting a Hail Mary scheme we didn't actually expect to work.' This is generations of Tollee's people. Suddenly she feels the horrible weight of what she's gambling with and it's choking, it's too much, but - it's still an obvious right choice, right, even if it takes years, if the humans think it might be worth it to them, it's worth it.

"We're leaving that up to you. It shouldn't take a season for the three heroes, or whoever wants to come, to make a round trip - just a moon cycle, or at least it took me half a moon cycle to get here. My honest estimate of the number of ferryshaft who will want to come is" - her heart beats in her throat, she wasn't expecting humans to want ferryshaft to come here, she'd been thinking of Lidian as home and it hadn't occurred to her - stupid - well, take the size of the herd, a thousand plus or minus a hundred, she guesses a fifth or thereabouts will be disadvantaged youngsters, and say a third of those willing - "enough to saturate the transportation chokepoint even if my friend gets lots of willing help, and we reproduce quickly without the culls or predation - a six-year generation time." At least that's really not a problem. Surprisingly.

"There are no particular pressing events that demand action, just the ongoing subjugation and culls. They happen at the start of winter, and it was late summer when I left. But - time can be strange in the Sea, and my friend has never made a round trip from Lidian to here before. Which could advantage us or dis-. I will check the moon tonight to see if it's in line with what it would have been had I stayed on Lidian for the last should-have-been half-moon-cycle . . . I don't expect it to correspond exactly, or to be off by more than a few days. You can't see it in the Sea, there's always mist. No day or night either. My friend was going by a timekeeping device."

Auralius probably just said something about magic.

"You can summon your friend when you want? Any location constraints? Blood of the Hydra is a magnitude two Spring ritual that can regrow lost body parts, although it is often ineffective on old wounds or appendages other than limbs."

"My friend and I have an agreed-upon rendezvous location and time; in the meantime I have no way to contact him." Blood of the Hydra, magnitude Two, Spring <-> body part regeneration (!!!). Winter <-> curses. Blood of the Hydra, Spring ritual, magnitude Two, body part regeneration (!!!) . . .

"What I am attempting to determine is not how to ambush your rendezvous, but whether you have time to wait for the Equinox, travel to Anvil, and recruit the very best people for the job there, taking a month or two, or whether we need to take you to the Court of the White Fountain to find some people who can be spared, taking a week or two, or whether we need to send you whoever we have lying around here, which we could probably dispatch within the day assuming whatever the current emergency is no longer needs all hands.

Please give me a useful answer to when and where your rendezvous is on this basis.

Piercing Light of Revelation is a Day ritual which can open a night pouch at the second magnitude or be cast at double the strength of a shroud to tear it down."

"It's in a couple of days less than a month, on the coast within a small part of a day's walk from here." It's in exactly a month, but she finds it difficult to imagine shorting them on available time hurting anybody. Them not speaking Lidian, she can even warn Tuvien to pretend he was late if relations with the humans of (Shatterspire <- Redoubt <- Urizen) haven't warmed up enough by then for her to have given up the lie.

"Right, then we can't get to Anvil but should send it out over the Heliopticon. Do you have a preference between staying here and heading to the Court of the White Fountain which is a larger fortification which is also easier for people to reach? If we've got a couple of weeks at least one trade ship should be back by then and we can travel the sensible way.

Do you consider artisanry to be covered by your understanding of the word 'magic'? Iridescent gloaming is prepared from gloaming butterflies, and required as a material component of Call Winged Messenger, to prepare the message that this Autumn ritual sends to the named recipient in the specified location."

"Your - trade ships - can travel the Sea Between Worlds? Have you - do you know of people who have been to Lidian?" I must be telling them something they don't already know. "I'll happily accept any knowledge you perceive as decently valuable to a ferryshaft. You guys - humans in general, really, but mages in particular - seem to be drowning in it." And now Tollee is drowning herself, but a storm in this context is a lot better than a drought.

"The sea between worlds is the actual sea and Liaden is an island somewhere?

That would make it a lot easier, we have a trading fleet - it's mostly coastal these days but it's been out on the open ocean before.

Alas for the Empire we do not have a fleet capable of carrying an entire army, because the Grendel keep sinking them, but we can put together numerous trading fleets who can probably bring you more military units than you would actually like.

I recommend we send word around by the Heliopticon and assemble an initial force in the Court of the White Fountain, then meet your friend with a single vessel containing a small military unit and a suitable set of heroes in case we need to transfer to them, with others standing by to follow if it transpires they can be followed.

There are unlikely to be more than half a dozen military units and suitable vessels available on this notice, as those who are not fighting in Zenith have gone to raid an island of slave traders elsewhere, but if we can prove the concept then a considerable force should be available next season.

Uh, Foam and Spittle of the Furious Sea is a Spring ritual that causes a great storm to rise up and damage ships on a particular stretch of coastal waters."

"Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you said earlier." holy ancestors this is embarrassing "It's not, to my understanding, a regular sea, which is why I was surprised. Lidian does physically take the shape of an island but my friend and I don't understand it to be reachable from here by the sea travel of those other than his species. I think you were actually talking about reaching the - Court of the White Fountain - by whatever a trade ship is. And to answer your earlier question, I have no preference for staying here, and I have no reason to doubt your presumed belief that the Court of the White Fountain would be advantageous to make preparations - even under the unfortunate circumstance that we can't actually get a non-tiny number of people across the Sea at once."

"Although. The image of some human machine, meeting Tuvien - er, that's my friend, I don't know if I said - " can hardly hurt in the face of revealing telshee Sea travel, right " - does give me an idea.   . . . There were drawings of Tuvien's species next to human machines, in the water - and the humans could clearly see Tuvien's kind.   . . . And I remember Tuvien saying something - probably repeating something he heard - about 'leading humans' around. I thought it was just a metaphorical brag on his culture's part, but now I realize that's probably how humans ever got to Lidian. Tuvien's proposed method of travel would be prohibitive in most possible historical scenarios, as well as this one.

If you would be willing to take a small ship, to start with, if they come in small, and try to follow Tuvien when he enters the mist - then I would ride that ship and leave space on Tuvien for an extra person, to show that I really expect it to maybe work."

"How small is small? I was expecting to send an ocean trade ship, crew of around thirty and space for fifty Sentinels in the empty hold if they're trained for close quarters. The White Fountain probably have some smaller patrol boats, if that's too much, but we don't generally rig anything smaller for the open ocean.

Let's draft a heliopticon message. First attempt: 'Unknown species from unknown island discovered, opportunity for anti slavery action, report within two weeks to the Court of the White Fountain, require diplomat-mages, tactician-architects, sentinels, sailors'.

A Circlet of Falling Snow is a magical item that requires no magical materials and two months to construct; it requires personal mana to operate and produces a sense of calm and clarity in any situation."

"I'd be loath to lead an entire large crew to their deaths or vanishments, is all.

Define 'anti slavery action'? The translator is unfortunately not helping.

. . . If you'll take this question, is personal mana also obtainable without starting magical materials? Is it generally present in intelligent beings, and if so, is there a way to measure it? Three questions, I guess." It wasn't part of the deal, but Tollee has to start asking somebody questions at some point. She was hoping for a quiet apprenticeship, an opportunity to do chores in exchange for sporadic or relevant tutoring, but that's not looking likely.

"Oh, if that's all, then we can simply explain the danger and anyone who still joins the expedition has decided to take the risk.

You claimed your people were in 'a state of subjugation' that involved culls and enforced illiteracy - if that doesn't round off to 'slavery' to you then we can use more words about it. 'rescue from conquerers who enforce illiteracy'? Everyone feels very strongly about slavery but everyone in the nation also cares about literacy, so that should work as well for the purpose.

Most people can develop personal mana if they try hard enough - it's a matter of study and doing the exercises. This applies to every speaking creature we know of that has the attention span, so I don't see why it shouldn't apply to ferryshaft. Once you have access to it, you can tell how much you have, and it can be improved with practice."

She's still curious what slavery is but not urgently enough to bother busy mages about it.

The news about personal mana is GREAT! Obviously human crafts confer at least as much advantage to them as their magical arts, but ferryshaft don't have human crafting paws. They can, apparently, have personal mana, though! Which corroborates the history fragments. She wonders how far her ancestors got before whatever happened to the ancient humans, happened.

"That phrasing sounds perfectly fine to me.

What does one study?"

"There are a number of casting metaphors that let you tap into the fundamental nature of reality. Let's head up to the Heliopticon tower and I can start giving you an overview on the way."

He stands up from the table with considerable energy for someone who probably hasn't slept for a week, and strides quickly towards the doorway - at which point he is interrupted by a cry of "Daddy!" and a very fast moving small child.

The small child is followed by a short woman, accompanying Aelea back to the canteen. She rolls her eyes fondly at Auralius. "Shouldn't you be asleep, rather than bothering our guest?"

"Important Heliopticon message to send, we need to get ready to turn around the first returning trade ship immediately for transport to the Court of the White Fountain." While talking, he sweeps the little girl up in the air and turns her upside down, causing much delighted shrieking.

Tollee will note Aelea's passing, watch the human baby acrobatics from a safe distance (they probably know what they're doing, right?), and hope she isn't messing up Auralius's life too much.

"Uh-huh," says the short woman. "Can our guest convey that to me, while you get some rest, before you inevitably rush off to deal with whatever this is?"

"Who's a good girl, is it you, are you a good girl?" He swings the child up and down once more then deposits her very gently back on the ground. "Tollee, recite the message? Marilla is right as usual, I should rest."

"New species, new location, they're being subjugated, we need - yeah, sorry, I didn't know half the words you said, to remember them, let alone the way you said it all, if that was important."

Am I going to be instrumental in delivering it? she does not ask, because that would sound plaintive.

"Marilla. Urgent broadcast heliopticon message."

Marilla smiles wryly and takes out a notepad and pen.

"'Unknown species from unknown island discovered, rescue from conquerors who enforce illiteracy, report within two weeks to the Court of the White Fountain, require diplomat-mages, tactician-architects, sentinels, sailors'." he recites. "Unless you have a better plan, wake me when the first trade ship returns."

And with that, he carefully deposits the small child back with Marilla and strides purposefully off towards the other exit to the canteen, the way he came in.

Tollee eyes Marilla silently, alert for a cue. Presumably she's supposed to stay here?